Using participatory conceptual modeling to integrate ecosystem and socioeconomic information into the fisheries stock assessment process: A Gulf of America red snapper case study

Abstract

Fisheries stock assessments are the backbone of fisheries management in the United States. While a stock assessment model provides scientific estimates of stock status and overfishing limits, the broader process involves decisions about which data are collected, how the model is structured, and the social and economic effects of implementing the quota advice. Despite growing recognition that ecosystem and socioeconomic factors strongly influence fish stocks and fisheries, these drivers remain underrepresented in the assessment process. In the current period of rapid global change, environmental disturbances and anthropogenic impacts are increasing in frequency and intensity, escalating the need for stock assessments to explore and account for the complex dynamics among fish stocks, fisheries, and social systems. In our research, we illustrate how participatory conceptual modeling can improve the entire stock assessment to management process by identifying data gaps, elucidating changes in fishing activity and human behavior over time, providing context to help explain model uncertainty and improve model parameterization, and describing feedback loops and unintended consequences of management actions. A case study from the Gulf of America red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus) fishery is used to illustrate the benefits of this methodology. Encouraging participatory conceptual modeling alongside future stock assessments would greatly increase our understanding of the socio-ecological feedbacks that are often critical to management success, and help determine how best to manage fisheries through an ever changing environmental and human landscape.